


the best of times

by elsewherewolf



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Father/Son Incest, M/M, Post-Movie, drift-memories, sorry not a happy ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 17:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1866621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsewherewolf/pseuds/elsewherewolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herc is about to bury an empty coffin.  He thinks about the words he wants to say, and why he wants to say them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the best of times

"At the best of times, I may not have understood my son, but throughout his life I was always proud of him. I always loved him."

Herc swallows, and looks up at the mirror, immediately looks away again. The cards he'd prepared are face-down beside the basin; he'd rehearsed that speech so many times that the words started to lose any meaning. So here he is, about to bury an empty coffin for his son, and all he has are a couple of sentences that say nothing about the end of the war, the vanquishing of the Kaiju, the years of hard work it took to get to this point, nor the years of hard work still to come. 

"At the best of times..."

He leaves the cards where they are, along with the untouched razor, and goes back into his bedroom, buttoning his dress shirt up all the way with his good hand. He'd contemplated attending the service in his drive suit, as a fuck you to the press he knows will be waiting there, ready to pounce and tear into the carcass of his soul. But Chuck deserves better. Chuck always deserved better than this.

He blinks out the heat in his eyes, and tries to remember exactly when 'the best of times' even were. Maybe when Chuck was five, and Herc had a few weeks off. Post-tour, and he and Angie took Chuck on his first real vacation. He'd been happy enough then, hadn't he? Splashing in the surf, building sandcastles with his mother, riding on Herc's shoulders almost everywhere they went. Of course he'd been happy. It was probably the last time they'd _all_ been truly happy.

He fastens the tie around his neck almost on auto-pilot. He hasn't worn the uniform in quite some time, but there are some things that are never forgotten.

Like the first drift with his son. Red hot hate, the blame, the _shame_ of it all, and that lone, icy blue memory of Angie, grabbing a handful of slush from the bottom of the cooler and throwing them at Herc's head. The way they'd laughed, tumbled to the sand. How they'd kissed. The sudden spike of desire from Chuck, and how Herc had completely misinterpreted it. 

_She's mine. Not yours. Do you understand?_ Some of the most terrible words he'd ever said to his son, unfounded jealousy, the raw pain of having that particular memory dredged up. Chuck hadn't spoken to him for days, afterward. Hell, Chuck hadn't spoken to him - not really - for years.

So young. 

Still so fucking young.

There's a knock on his door, soft and unobtrusive. Raleigh, reminding him that they're leaving in five minutes for the cemetery.

 _Chuck isn't dead._ Herc keeps telling himself that. Maybe his son _is_ only ash at the bottom of the ocean, but he's certainly not dead.

The seventh drift, that's where Chuck still lives. They'd filtered through the usual driftspace flashes, and Herc had felt Angie's mouth open beneath his own, warmth and sweetness and it had been tempting to stay there. Forget everything else and just stay right there in that kiss. Chuck had pulled him out of it, pulled him into the fight and they were unstoppable as always. A force to be reckoned with, when they were together. 

Not the drift, then. What came after. When the Kaiju was down, when they were letting the threads of the drift unwind, loosening whatever was binding them together still. Chuck had pulled him down to the floor and Herc swore he felt the softness of a blanket on the sand, and he'd pressed his mouth to Chuck's and felt it open, felt his _son_ open to him and they'd fallen asleep like that somehow. Woke, hours later, lazily kissing.

Chuck had looked up at him, when they'd finally stopped, and there was a bigger war going on inside him than there was outside their walls.

"This never happened," Herc mutters, recalling Chuck's words. He was right; it hadn't, it wasn't really anything to do with them. Echoes of the drift, bleeding through.

Herc has nobody left to drift with, not any more. He won't taste Angie's mouth again, not in the ways the drift allowed him to. He won't feel his son's body, pliant beneath his own, won't know Chuck's hand in his hair, digging into his skin.

There's a crater left, where his wife had been. An empty coffin for his son.

"Marshall? It's time."

"I loved him, Raleigh."

Raleigh stands in the doorway, and Herc sees him look, watches him take in the space that Herc had shared with his son. Wonders if he can see it, wonders how much is even there to be seen.

"He knew it, Herc. He knew."


End file.
